Betting Odds
From HelpWiki
The racing register hosts Bet Friday where you can pick your favorite horse to win, place, or show and get some extra cash for selecting the correct placings. How much money you'll win for your bet depends on how much money you bet and the horse's odds.
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Bet Amounts: Max Bets
How much you can bet at a racetrack depends on the racetrack. Each track has a maximum bet amount. New tracks and tracks with fewer funds have a lower maximum bet than older tracks with more money. Bets can only be placed in $5 increments and you can only pick one horse to take first place, second place or third place.
Horse Odds: Low is Bad
Every horse in a race has an odds column. A horse's odds are calculated based on several different things such as their race record, track records, their fastest recorded time with a trainer and how many other people are betting on them. The better a horse races the lower it's odds are. The worse a horse races the higher it's odds are. When you're betting you want to select a horse with higher odds otherwise you'll end up breaking even or loosing your money.
Understanding Odds
Odds are always two numbers separated by a slash. The first number is dollar amount bet and the second number is how much money you'll get for that dollar amount if the horse wins.
One of the most common odds you'll see is 1/1. This means for every $1 you bet you'll get $1 back. Betting on a horse with 1/1 odds means you won't ever make money. Instead you'll only break even. If you bet $10 on this horse for a first place win you'll get $10 back.
If a horse has 1/30 odds, for every $1 you bet you'll get $30 back if the horse wins. While a horse with higher odds is considered to be a longshot, or have less of a chance of winning, if you bet $10 on this horse for a first place win you'll get $300 back.
If you bet on a horse with 1/251 odds for every $1 you bet you'll get $251 back. If you bet $10 on this horse for a first place win you'll get $2,510 back.
Losing Money On A Winner
Sometimes you can loose money even on a winning bet. Even if you bet on a horse that has 1/15 odds, other people may bet on it too dropping it's odds down drastically. When this happens the horse's odds change and if too many people bet on the horse it will end up having inverse odds like 2/1.
With 2/1 odds for every $2 you bet you'll only get $1 back. So if you bet $10 on this horse for first place and it wins you'll only get $5 back.
If you bet $10 on a horse with 5/1 odds for first place and it wins you'll only get $2 back.
First, Second, Third Payouts: What's The Difference?
If you bet on a second or third place horse and it wins you'll get half or a third as much as it's odds. For instance let's say you bet $10 on a horse with 1/16 odds.
If the horse wins 1st place you'll get $16 for every $1 you bet. You'd get $160 dollars for a $10 bet.
If the horse wins 2nd place you'll get $8 for every $1 you bet. You'd get $80 dollars for a $10 bet.
If the horse wins 3rd place you'll get $5 for every $1 you bet. You'd get $50 dollars for a $10 bet.
Cashing In: Ticket Stubs
You can view your outstanding bets by going to your account and clicking on the number of betting stubs you have. From this section you can see the horses you've bet on, their current odds, as well as their jockey/trainer/owner information. You can also see what your payout will be if the horse wins.
Once the race has run you can cash in winning tickets and throw away loosing tickets from this page.
